So, if you go to the PsyPoke chatroom, you might have seen me mention this convoluted "comparer" that I've been working on since July 2008. The purpose of this comparer was to have every Pokemon in a match against every other Pokemon in which I pick my favorite; when the comparer was finally finished, I'd have my definitive rankings of every Pokemon. Because this is a Pokemon forum, I decided to make a ranking thread with commentary. YAAAAAY!!!

If you're wondering why the topic says 512 Pokemon, it's because my comparer has a lot of the alternate forms of various Pokemon. In fact, the alternate forms that were in my comparer were also the ones that I deemed important enough to include in PsyPoke Idol 2. So you can also look at this thread of Frost's personal ranking of the PsyPoke Idol 2 contestants. (The 493 official Pokemon and the alternate forms of Castform, Deoxys, Burmy, Wormadam, Shellos, Gastrodon, Rotom, Giratina and Shaymin but not Unown, Spinda or Cherrim.) Although they might be referenced in my write-ups, the Generation V Pokemon will not be included in this ranking because they are too new to rank and this list was finished before Zoroark's silhouette was even revealed. And so...

Rating: 1/10 ("These Pokemon f*cking suck!")512. Spiritomb (National Dex: 442; Generation: IV)It was during this ranking that I finally determined what my least favorite Pokemon is: Spiritomb. I honestly can't imagine any future Pokemon surpassing this thing in being awful unless GameFreak introduces a Spiritomb evolution or pre-evolution (PLEASE GOD NO). Okay, so why do I hate Spiritomb so much? Quite simply, it's hideous. According to canon, it's supposed to be an collection of 108 malevolent spirits bound by the keystone at the bottom of Spiritomb's sprite... but, in reality, it really looks like grape soda vomit with a few pieces of green debris thrown in for good measure. It even has a little swirly black thing where its eyes should be. To be concise, Spiritomb looks more like a bad joke that the creators designed on an acid trip than something "evil." Speaking of evil, Spiritomb is a Ghost/Dark-type Pokemon and, if you know anything else about me, you probably know that I hate the Dark-type and a lot of its Pokemon because they try to look "cool" and "evil" but only succeed in attracting dumb little kids. In battle, Spiritomb is probably decent but, to be honest, I don't really give a fuck about its worth in battle. It's fugly, it's annoying, and it even has a plushie when much cuter Pokemon like Togekiss have not. Die in a fire, Vomitomb!

511. Sharpedo (National Dex: 319; Generation: III)You can take much of what I just wrote for Vomitomb and apply it to Sharpedo or, as I call it, Shitpedo. Like Spiritomb, Sharpedo is a (Water/)Dark-type Pokemon and it has a hideous appearance. For one thing, it looks rabid and angry, and I'm usually not a fan of Pokemon of this mold. But there's the other problem I have with Sharpedo... IT DOESN'T HAVE A BODY!!! Seriously, what an awful design: it's a damn decapitated shark's head with a couple of fins tacked on. Great job, artists! Another problem with Sharpedo is that it's just another one of the millions of Water Pokemon dumped into Hoenn's endless water routes, so it isn't very memorable. It's also not that great in battle, since Rough Skin is pretty useless on something with such paper-thin Defenses. What a failure.

510. Croagunk (National Dex: 453; Generation: IV)I really, really hate this thing. In fact, I hate Croagunk so much that I refer to it with the name "Crackface" on a regular basis. It's bad enough that Croagunk is seriously ugly (hence my nickname of "Crackface," because it certainly looks like it's been hitting the crack too much), but the real reason why Croagunk ranks this low is because it's Brock's main Pokemon in the DP-based anime. Giving so much screentime to such a monstrocity would be bad enough, but Croagunk actually took over the tired dead horse joke of dragging away/attacking Brock when he hits on women. It sucked with Misty, it sucked with Max and it sucks with Croagunk, even though Croagunk inexplicably has a lot of fans who believe that the unfunny joke is actually funny with Croagunk but not with Misty or Max. (I don't get it.) My favorite Croagunk story is how I was in browsing through the toy section at Target one day and encountered Diamond and Pearl plushies. Because Croagunk is featured on the anime, it had a plushie made out of it but, because Croagunk is so hideously ugly, nobody was buying them. The entire section of DP plushies had been cleaned out, leaving only dozens of ignored Croagunk plushies. HILARIOUS!

509. Gabite (National Dex: 444; Generation: IV)I'll keep this one short and sweet. Gabite is the pre-evolution of a Pokemon who I find incredibly annoying (his write-up is coming soon, don't worry), but it's also uglier and more rabid-looking than that particular Pokemon. Gabite is also one of the many Pokemon who suffers from "Middle Evolution Syndrome," in which the middle evolution isn't cute like the first form (not that Gible is cute, but it's still "cuter") or cool like the final form (not that Garchomp is cool, but it's still "cooler"). It's just an awkward, and in this case ugly, teenager who needs to go away.

508. Huntail (National Dex: 367; Generation: III)Huntail, moar liek Huntfail, amirite? Huntail is just another of the endless Water Pokemon introduced during Generation III and, like the other Pokemon on this ranking so far, it's hideously ugly. It looks like they were trying to make Huntail's design look scary, but random orange-and-white spots and gapped fangs aren't too intimidating. Huntail is pretty crappy in battle (and he's certainly inferior to his much cooler counterpart Gorebyss in both looks and battling ability) and really isn't that memorable other than being hideously ugly. He's also an eel, and I'll tell you right now that I DESPISE eels even in real life, so Huntail was pretty much doomed to my hatred from the start.

507 Cradily (National Dex: 346; Generation: III)Okay, so... I'll say upfront that I picked the Claw Fossil when I first played through Sapphire. However, just because I like Armaldo does not necessarily mean that I would dislike its counterpart if it were a decent design. Cradily, on the other hand, is NOT a decent design. It took me forever to realize that the yellow orb in Cradily's "mouth" is probably an eye, so for a long time I thought that Cradily's "eyes" were the yellow spots on its head and its real "eye" was a tooth. In other words, Cradily was trying to look intimidating even though I viewed at it as a toothless hillbilly. So, basically, Cradily looks ugly and stupid and is a stain on an otherwise-awesome type (Grass). I'll also say that it does NOT help Cradily that it's actually decent in battle, because TonberryKing used it against me when we used to battle on the RSbots and I couldn't get through the annoying thing.

506. Drapion (National Dex: 452; Generation: IV)I know that a couple of my good friends on PsyPoke like Drapion... but, sorry guys, I don't. It's another case of the design killing the Pokemon. I don't think that scorpions that look like they swallowed an accordion and/or were created by Dr. Robotnik to combat Sonic the Hedgehog look cool. Seriously, it looks almost like a note-perfect scorpion version of Caterkiller. It also does not help that Drapion SHOULD be a Dark/Bug-type, and even evolves from a Bug-type, but, rather pointlessly, keeps its Poison-type instead of its Bug-type upon evolution, providing one of many examples of how GameFreak hates Bug-types. Oh, yeah, and it's a Dark-type, and I hate those, especially when they look like they want to eat my face as Drapion does. It's also not that great in battle due to its shallow movepool, so it can just go away as far as I'm concerned.

505. Dustox (National Dex: 269; Generation: III)I dislike Dustox so much that I once recorded an audio rant explaining the reasons why I hate Dustox. However, because I hate my voice, I'm not posting that here. Here's an abridged version: I hate Dustox because it has an ugly design, it's absolutely useless in battle and it wasn't even interesting on the anime. The design is abstract and bizarre, as if the designers threw it together on an acid trip the night before Ruby and Sapphire were released. In battle, it has no good moves and only one halfway decent stat (Special Defense) that it can't take advantage of due to its awful typing and subpar movepool. In the anime, it managed to be around for hundreds of episodes and I'm sure there was a point that even the writers forgot that it was on Jessie's team because it was absent so much! It also had a stupid voice and, in general, is part of family of pointless Hoenn rehashes of superior Kanto Pokemon. It sucks.

504. Bronzong (National Dex: 437; Generation: IV)Now, I know Bronzong is supposed to be a Pokemon modeled after a church bell or the Liberty Bell (you know, that kind of majestic bell), so... why does it look so dumb? There's so many random markings on Bronzong and it has red eyes, so it really looks crazy and like its facial expression is ">:BBBBBB"... so stupid. It's just a really bad, almost abstract, eyestrain-worthy Pokemon. In addition to a bad appearance, Bronzong doesn't even have a good NAME because it's NOT A GONG, so whoever named it gets the epic fail stamp too. In battle, meh, it's probably pretty decent, even though they randomly gave it a trademark ability that nobody would EVER use in place of the much-superior Levitate (which Bronzong also gets), so I can't get over the randomness that is Bronzong and its abstract markings/design, stupid abilities or unexplainable part Psychic-type.

503. Shelgon (National Dex: 372; Generation: III)I'll be honest: Shelgon was NOT originally this low on the list until yesterday. It was still low, of course, but it didn't bother me as much. Why did I decide to knock it down at least 15 spots on my rankings, below Pokemon who used to annoy me so much more than Shelgon did? Because of PsyPoke Idol 2. Shelgon making it to the second round of voting was probably the biggest joke of the entire contest and solid proof that little kids, above anything else, care much more about what type a Pokemon is or what a Pokemon evolves into. Look at Shelgon's design for a second and you'll quickly realize something... it's a COCOON on par with METAPOD, KAKUNA, SILCOON and CASCOON. But are those four Pokemon DRAGON-TYPE, which is so OMG COOL? Nope. Do those four Pokemon evolve into SALAMENCE, who is so OMFG AWESOMMMME??!?!?! No. But were any of those Pokemon voted into the second round of Idol 2? Nope. The only difference is that Shelgon can learn more than Tackle and Harden. So what? It's still a sh*tty, unoriginal design and this lower ranking is punishment for the stupidity that was Shelgon getting through the first round due to its OMG COOL type and OMG COOL evolution. GTFO!

502. Garchomp (National Dex: 445; Generation: IV)From one hideously overrated, pointless Dragon-type to another... while it's true that I think Garchomp is a bad design made primarily to look OMG COOL to kids (didn't we already have a rabid-looking shark-based Pokemon who I ALSO dislike?), that's only one of the reasons it's this low on my list. Another major reason Garchomp came in this low? OMG SMOGON MADE GARCHOMP UBER TIER, NOW I CAN'T USE IT IN BATTLE BAWWWWWW!!11!. Yes, the pointlessly dramatic sh*tfit that people threw over Garchomp being banned from standard battles is another reason why I can't stand the thing. My favorite Garchomp-related moment was the thread in our own Battle Tower about Garchomp's tiering that basically de-evolved into Sapphirath acting like a gigantic douchebag and R_R coming in to rename the thread the "Apparently Saphirath has the right to be arrogant" thread and locking it. If only Garchump could be as cool as R_R! ;o

501. Electivire (National Dex: 466; Generation: IV)So, here's the problem I have with Electivire and, indeed, several (though not all) of the newer evolutions in Diamond/Pearl. I hate seeing Pokemon that are actually decent in battle, such as Electabuzz, Magmar and especially Rhydon and Dusclops, get evolutions over Pokemon who really NEED the evolutions such as Delcatty, Farfetch'd and others. Yeah, sure, Electivire is OU and Electabuzz probably wouldn't have been (although one reason for Electivire's tiering is Motor Drive, so they could have just, you know, GIVEN THAT TO ELECTABUZZ instead of evolving it), but what else was accomplished from evolving such a cool Pokemon into a demonic Furby? Absolutely nothing. Piss off, Electivire, you suck and made a great Pokemon into a novelty.

500. Palkia (National Dex: 484; Generation: IV)One thing you might notice from this thread is that I'm not a big fan of big, powerful, ugly Legendaries. Like Dark Pokemon, the only reason they seem to exist is to draw little kids into the fanbase, and often they are ridiculously overpowered according to the game's canon. Take Palkia, for instance, who can control space. The fact that we now have Pokemon who can control entire DIMENSIONS does not sit well with me, especially when it's possible for an evil Team who uses Wurmples and Glameows to overpower them. Another thing, which I probably don't even need to mention because it's been pointed out so much, is that Palkia's upper body resembles a giant penis, but what I've always found more amusing is how Palkia is filling up with pink energy on the Pearl title screen, which makes me think that Palkia is charging its gay power. It's pretty sad how there are so many jokes associated with such a powerful Pokemon, don't you think? Also, it annoys me that Palkia's counterparts got unique type combinations but Palkia is just an Uber version of Kingdra. LAME.

499. Toxicroak (National Dex: 454; Generation: IV)Toxicroak is basically this low because its pre-evolution is so horrible; it is nearly as ugly as Crackface but, to be fair, it's not as annoying because Brock doesn't own one in the anime. Still, it's a bad design and I think it's a shame that I dislike the Croagunk/Toxicroak family so much because their type combination actually has some potential. We already had a good family of frog-based Pokemon and we didn't need these stupid things. I did wish that Saturn's Toxicroak could have punched Brock's Croagunk in the face during the final battle against Team Galactic in the anime, though.

498. Arceus (National Dex: 493; Generation: IV)So speaking of ridiculous Legendary Pokemon... meet God. I thought Arceus was a horrible design when I first saw its sprite (seriously, it's a vaguely horse-like being with random golden arches crammed into its body, and why the hell is God a horse?) but, upon seeing other artwork, the design isn't as bad as I first thought. However, I still hate the idea of an official Pokemon "God," and I used to jokingly hope that Nintendo would never officially reveal Arceus as if to make a commentary on religion. ;o In my day, "Pokegods" were non-existent rumors in Pokemon Red and Blue, not actual Pokemon. And, man, Gamefreak totally made sure that Arceus could dominate against any and every Pokemon. Here we have a Pokemon with the highest base stats in the game, a ridiculous ability that lets be whichever type the player wants and a trademark move that guarantees a powerful STAB move for any of Arceus' types. Overkill, much? Plus, it does not sit well with me that GameFreak retconned Arceus into the "origin" Pokemon when it was originally Mew. Decent execution of an idea that I detest.

497. Gible (National Dex: 443; Generation: IV)So if I hate Gabite and I hate Garchomp, it's not unrealistic that I would hate Gible too. The entire family blows chunks, but Gible is the most tolerable one. It doesn't have random fangs growing from its limbs, it doesn't look AS rabid as its evolutions and there's no controversy over its strength in battle. Still, it looks braindead and evolves into crap, so it can GTFO. ETA: Ash's also got a Gible in the anime, after the writers stupidly wrote Gliscor off to train in using Giga Impact or some other incredibly forced and lame reason. People were so excited because OMG ASH HAS A DRAGON-TYPE THIS IS SOOOOO COOOOOL!1!1!, but I would have preferred NOT having another awful write-off from the anime so soon after Dawn's Ambipom.

496. Solrock (National Dex: 338; Generation: III)Solrock is kind of a reverse case of Arceus. Whereas Arceus is a decent execution of a horrible idea, Solrock is a horrible execution of a decent idea. A sun-based Pokemon would be perfectly alright in my book but, for absolutely no reason, Solrock is a Psychic/Rock-type Pokemon and that pretty much ruins it. For one thing, the design is just bad. How do you make a sun out of rocks? You use little jagged edges to represent the sun's rays and, as a result, make the Pokemon look incredibly stupid. Its eyes look awful too. Also, giving Solrock these two random types means that it's a sun-based Pokemon who isn't even part FIRE, what the hell?! Sure, they gave Solrock some Fire moves to try to compensate, but its worst stat also happens to Special Attack. They got everything about Solrock backwards.

495. Purugly (National Dex: 432; Generation: IV)I barely even need to waste time explaining why Purugly is a bad Pokemon. It's pretty much a given that it's a horrible design, considering even Nintendo of America named it PurUGLY. (Purugly, moar liek Purfugly, amirite?) Plus, I don't know why Gamefreak felt obligated to give us ANOTHER family of cat-based Pokemon when we've had at least one (but usually more) cat-based Pokemon in all three of the generations prior to Diamond and Pearl. Purugly also has a very similar stat distribution and movepool when compared with Persian, making it feel very "been there, done that." However, I love cats, so I'd gladly accept more cat Pokemon if they're cute. Purugly is the antithesis of that, with the designers tossing in hideous obesity just to make it look worse. I really hope that Generation V's token family of cat-based Pokemon are improvement over this.

494. Sneasel (National Dex: 215; Generation: II)Yeah, so, sorry S_S... Sneasel finally shows up on my rankings. To be honest, I didn't always hate Sneasel, but I never really cared about it either. It looked kind of like a turd with its awfully-drawn, brown-colored sprite in Gold and Silver, and I hated that they gave a Pokemon with two Special typings such piss-poor Special Attack and Defense. It was one of the most useless Ice-types in battle until DP, which happened to be the game where they gave Sneasel an evolution anyway, so... *waw waw*! In reality, a lot of my Sneasel hatred is through association. There used to be a member of the forums who loved Sneasel (no, it's not S_S) and then he became a gigantic asshole and left in a needlessly dramatic fashion. I associate Sneasel with that idiot, which is probably the main reason I dislike it as much as I do. Combining my favorite type with my least favorite type also doesn't help, though.

493. Togepi (National Dex: 175; Generation: II)I'll keep this one short: I hate Togepi because of the anime. It's annoying, it's useless, it's demonic, my least favorite character owns one, and the combination of all of these factors made me hate Togetic by association for a long time even though Togetic is actually awesome. It's also one of the most annoying Pokemon ever to train in the video games, because the only attack it gets through level-up is Metronome, and it's not even cute. It looks like a hardboiled failure, and I don't know why the companies in charge thought it was a good choice to get people excited for new Pokemon and/or games. TOKEY TOKEY BRIIIII needs to get scrambled.

492. Feebas (National Dex: 349; Generation: III)Feebas has several strikes against it. Incredibly ugly? Check. Bad Hoenn version of a superior Kanto Pokemon (in this case Magikarp)? Check. Evolves into a Pokemon idolized by idiots (<r-cubed> OMG MILOTIC IZ SO BEAUTIFUL FAP FAP FAP)? Check. Completely worthless in battle, ridiculously rare for absolutely no reason, and also a pain in the ass to evolve? Check, check and check. And why the hell does it get more than Splash and Tackle when Magikarp didn't? It doesn't even work as a proper clone of an older Pokemon. Checkmate. You lose, Failbas.

Rating: 2/10 ("I hate these Pokemon!")491. Heatran (National Dex: 485; Generation: IV)Another bad design ruins a Pokemon. I think I would like Heatran a whole lot more if I could tell what the hell it was supposed to be based on. As it stands, it looks like some kind of s magma/steel frog thing to me, but who knows? It also doesn't help that its trademark move is a souped-up version of Fire Spin (lol fail) and its types are overrated (Fire) and boring (Steel) in general. I don't even feel like wasting anymore quality wit talking about this thing. It's a mess and nothing about it appeals to me.

490. Deoxys (Speed) (National Dex: 386; Generation: III)Deoxys seems very much like the Hoenn version of Mewtwo, so the only thing that I find very notable about it are its different forms. A couple of the forms are tolerable and a couple aren't. The Speed Deoxys that was pointlessly introduced in Pokemon Emerald is one of the stupid ones. It's a bad design in general (it really doesn't look "fast" so much as it looks "fragile" and anorexic), but basing a Pokemon around having a great Speed stat, as proven by Electrode, usually leads to a pretty crappy battling Pokemon. Deoxys-S has incredible speed but the rest of the its stats are about on par with any other non-Legendary Pokemon, which is pretty sad. It's really only Uber because of the existence of Choice Band/Lens to power up its average offenses. Bad design, mediocre battler, no point for existing in general.

489. Beldum (National Dex: 374; Generation: III)Beldum is a pretty sad design. It's a little... red eye thing with an arm. I guess, based on its name, it's supposed to be a dumbbell or something, but it really looks like a discarded piece of scrap metal. While I've never trained Beldum, I imagine that it would be annoying as hell to level up because, for absolutely NO REASON other than to piss players off, it only learns one move that has recoil damage. But the real reason I hate Beldum? It irritated the hell out of me in Diamond and Pearl. You see, there was literally a ten-day period where my swarm Pokemon in Diamond was nothing but Beldum. For ten CONSECUTIVE DAYS, and I'm not joking nor exaggerating, I would talk to Lucas' little brat of a sister everyday at midnight, hoping that I would finally get a Swinub or Smoochum swarm. The reward for my patience? "Route 228! There's a whole bunch of BELDUM there! Route 228! There's a whole bunch of BELDUM there! Route 228! There's a whole bunch of BELDUM there! I'm an insufferable little twit! Route 228! There's a whole bunch of BELDUM there!" As a result, Beldum (and Lucas' sister) were permanently banished to my sh*tlist.

488. Darkrai (National Dex: 491; Generation: IV)Yeah, my beef with Darkrai is the whole "Dark Pokemon, obviously designed to look cool to little kids" thing again. Also, it seems like GameFreak were really trying to build Darkrai as the Pokemon version of Freddy Krueger. Unfortunately, Freddy Krueger is awesome while Darkrai looks like a boring shadow with a cloud on its head. It just doesn't look cool or intimidating enough to do its job. I'm also not a fan of how Darkrai's rival is Cresselia, who is a much cooler design in general, but Nintendo has gone out of their way to make Darkrai superior to Cresselia. Darkrai's type has an obvious advantage against Cresselia's. Darkrai has also had TCG cards with attacks that do extra damage to enemy Cresselia cards ONLY. I think the imbalance in the Darkrai vs. Cresselia rivalry bothers me so much because Darkrai seems masculine and modeled to appeal to boys while Cresselia is a girly, female Pokemon. I'm not saying Gamefreak is intentionally sexist, but it rubs me the wrong way. Darkrai was also the star of the eleventh movie, but I don't care because the Pokemon movies suck and so does Darkrai.

487. Skuntank (National Dex: 435; Generation: IV)Ugh, I hate this thing! Another horrible implemention of a decent idea. If I were to imagine a skunk-based Pokemon about five years ago, I probably would have envisioned something on par with Flower from the Bambi series. Instead, GameFreak blessed us with a walking fart joke. Skuntank has an assface, its Japanese name is Skunpoo and its cry sounds like audio diarrhea. It also learns Flamethrower, which allows players to draw their own hideous conclusions. It looks ugly, it's a Dark Pokemon even though it didn't need to be, and it's basically an unfunny failure.

486. Lileep (National Dex: 345; Generation: III)It's a less offensive Cradily. It's purple, which is cool, and it doesn't look like rotten-toothed hillbilly, but it's still related to evil, looks kind of dumb in its own right, resembling a random tentacle, and it's a stain on one of my favorite types (Grass). On top of that: Anorith and Armaldo for life, yo.

In the next update: more Hoenn and Sinnoh slaughter, with maybe a Johto Pokemon if I can be bothered to update that far.

485. Stunky (National Dex: 434; Generation: IV)While Stunky's design is a little cuter and its cry isn't as god-awful, you can pretty much take my write-up for Skuntank and apply most of it to this thing. The name "Stunky" is oddly appropriate because it invokes a vision of failure and Stunky certainly does just that. Also, because this is a very short write-up, I'll add that Glameow/Stunky are just about the only version exclusive counterparts in which I actually hate BOTH families nearly equally. That almost never happens.

484. Budew (National Dex: 406; Generation: IV)Budew is a baby Pokemon and, if you don't know this, you might quickly realize that I greatly dislike human babies because they're annoying. Baby Pokemon are just as bad as their human counterparts: they're seen "cute," even though they're honestly not that cute considering their only reason for existing is their supposed cuteness, and they're generally useless lumps of sh*t otherwise. Anyway, Budew is a very much a Grass/Poison version of Togepi. It's a blandly-designed Baby Pokemon who evolves into an awesome Pokemon via Happiness and an even more awesome final stage through using the Shiny Stone. Being parallel to the Togedemon is not a good thing, so Budew, like many babies, can be retroactively aborted for all I care.

483. Deoxys (Defense) (National Dex: 386; Generation: III)I've already commented on Deoxys a little bit in the write-up for Deoxys-S, so here's Deoxys-D, the other terrible Deoxys form. It seriously looks like a living road block, which is a pretty stupid idea, and while the design DOES lend itself to the Defense theme well enough, it just isn't very interesting, likely because defense is less exciting than offense anyway. Deoxys in general seems like a Hoenn space virus rehash of Mewtwo, so making a defensive, tumor-like traffic cone form of Deoxys certainly doesn't help its case. I'll say right now that this is the last appearance of a Deoxys form for awhile, though.

482. Weavile (National Dex: 461; Generation: IV)I'll give Weavile some credit: unlike Electivire, it was a new evolution for a Pokemon who did actually need the power upgrade. Unfortunately, it's related to Sneasel, and I've already documented why I have a distaste for Sneasel, so Weavile sucks by association. This situation is not helped by the fact that I think Weavile looks less like a fully-realized evolution and more like an slight redesign of Sneasel. Also, I just realized something else: Sneasel and Weavile manage to combine my very favorite type with my very least favorite type, so I'm not very surprised that I dislike them so much, factoring in idiot PsyPoke members of days past or not.

481. Magnezone (National Dex: 462; Generation: IV)So speaking of new evolutions that I detest... say hello to Magnezone! Now, let me make something clear: Magneton is a very sentimental Pokemon to me for reasons that I'll explain if I ever get to Magneton's write-up. And the sheer ridiculousness of Magnezone's design is the reason why I hate it. They seriously evolved a Pokemon for whom I have so much sentiment into an UFO with an evil glaring red eye of death? Really? Granted, it's a creative design whereas Magneton is literally three Magnemite pasted together. But just because Magnezone lookss creative does not mean that I have think it's good otherwise, and I don't; I mean, why the hell has one of the Magnemites mutated to five times its regular size and spouted an antenna? Did somebody slip acid in my Coke Zero or what? There's also the fact that Magneton wasn't really the first Pokemon who needed an evolution. Yeah, it was OU in Generation III only due to Magnet Pull, but it still wasn't so spectacularly awful in battle that an evolution was required. Magnezone could have been scrapped easily for that elusive Farfetch'd evolution.

Rating: 3/10 ("I strongly dislike these Pokemon!")480. Luvdisc (National Dex: 370; Generation: III)Come on, I don't even need to explain this one. It's a f*cking heart. GameFreak probably came up with this design in about ten seconds. It also isn't useful in battle and its sole purpose is to provide Heart Scales, which aren't even that useful. And its stat distribution, in particular, is puzzling; crappy stats all around, except a Base 97 in Speed, and they gave it Swift Swim just because. WTF? The only reason why Luvdisc is this high is because it doesn't really offend me; it's actually kind of hilarious that it's such an uncreative, pathetic Pokemon, and I could only imagine what an evolution for a random heart could be. A BIGGER heart with wings?!

479. Cascoon (National Dex: 268; Generation: III)It's a cocoon. It evolves into Dustox and is part of a needlessly stupid split evolution that might as well be random. (How damn annoying is it when you want a female Beautifly and a male Dustox but end up with the opposite because of Wurmple's stupid Personality value?) It's useless and so uninteresting that I can't even think of anymore creative ways to insult it. Next.

478. Silcoon (National Dex: 268... oh, wait, you mean it's NOT Cascoon? 266; Generation: III)Read the last write-up, but replace the word "Dustox" in the second sentence with "Beautifly." Silcoon is a spot higher because I like Beautifly a metric f*ckton more than I like Dustox, but otherwise they're the same damn Pokemon. I really think that, if they wanted to do the split branch evolution, Wurmple should have evolved into Silcoon (or Cascoon, since they're the same damn Pokemon) and then Silcascoon should have branched directly into Beautifly and Dustox. There is absolutely NO reason to have BOTH of these Pokemon in existence. But I'd like to point and laugh at Shelgon and how I still think it's worse than these pointless lumps. *Nelson laugh*

477. Shedinja (National Dex: 292; Generation: III)Shedinja is the built-in bonus that Trainers receive for evolving their Nincada and, honestly, it's kind of a crappy prize. The design is dull and doesn't make sense; I mean, why exactly has an undead spirit possessed a cicada's discarded exoskeleton? If there were some sort of Japanese folk tale that explained the basis of Shedinja, it'd be a little cooler but, instead, it's just random as hell. It's supposed to be a nukenin, which is a ninja who abandons their clan, but I don't see that at ALL. And, of course, Shedinja's exclusive ability is Wonder Guard, which attracts stupid little kids to Shedinja because "OMG SHEDINJA CAN'T BE HIT BY LOTS OF STUFF!111!" but there are so many problems with this statement because Wonder Guard's lack of immunity to entry hazards and status effects paired with Shedinja's crappy typing and laughable 1 HP means that just about everything has a tool to kill Wonder Guard dead. Boring/random appearance and highly overrated ability makes a lame Pokemon.

476. Exploud (National Dex: 295; Generation: III)A really bad design. Okay, so, Whismur? A bunny, I get it. But Exploud? There's no way this thing is supposed to be rabbit-based even though its first form is a bunny. So what is this thing, some sort of... living Aztec Ruins stereo system? Either way, it's really ugly and it's not that useful in battle either. Definitely the worst of all of the fully-evolved "bunny" Pokemon since it's not even a bunny. Also, it was pretty funny when I saw matches like "Togepi vs. Exploud" while doing my comparer because little annoying Pokemon such as Togepi could fit easily inside of that gigantic mouth of Exploud's. TOGEPI OM NOM NOM?? Right there is one of the few tangible reasons why Exploud outranks Togepi in these rankings.

475. Sableye (National Dex: 302; Generation: III)WHY THE HELL DID SOMEBODY CRAZY GLUE SOME PRECIOUS GEMS WHERE ITS EYES SHOULD BE??? That's the dumbest thing about Sableye's appearance because otherwise it's just a generic gremlin that isn't very visually interesting. It's also Ghost/Dark, a.k.a. the type combination of pure evil (Vomitomb), and I still have bad nightmares about people from five years ago who would join the forums only to say "Oh my gaaawd guys, if you hack Wonder Guard onto Sableye, it's invincible!!" These people were special, kind of like Sableye, who was such a failure in battles that they needed to create Spiritomb to have a Dark/Ghost Pokemon that wasn't competitively crap. But, let's be fair, Sableye isn't pixellated vomit, so I like it much more than its Sinnoh counterpart.

474. Pichu (National Dex: 172; Generation: II)Simultaneously taking the bronze prize for "Worst Baby Pokemon" and "Worse Johto Pokemon," we have Pichu, the pre-evolution of Pokemon's corporate cash cow mascot, Pikachu. Now, I'll be fair, Pichu can actually be cute sometimes. So why do I dislike Pichu so much? Well, for one thing, it's a Baby Pokemon and I've already discussed why I hate those. But Pichu is a particularly annoying Baby Pokemon. It was the star of the single worst episode of the Anime that I've ever seen, entitled "The Apple Corp," which was literally twenty minutes of nothing. Pichu eats apples! Pichu climbs tree! Pichu chokes on an apple in a comical fashion! Yes, this was the entire episode and, oh my god, it was so RIVETING! Strangely, Pichu is NOT voiced by Ikue Ohtani, who voices Pikachu, and that's a shame because I think Pichu's voice is VERY annoying, especially in its useless Super Smash Bros. Melee incarnation. I still have nightmare about Pichu's horrible screeching of "PICHU PIIIIIIICHUUUUUUUU!1!1!!!!" when you kill the thing in SSBM. What a goddamn annoying Pokemon. If Brawl has one advantage over Melee, it's that Pichu was dropped from the roster.

473. Rhyperior (National Dex: 464; Generation: IV)While I hate some other new evolutions in Diamond and Pearl more, Rhyperior certainly takes the prize for "Most Unnecessary New Evolution -- EVER!" Let's look at the facts: sure, Rhydon was slow as hell and it couldn't take a Special hit to save its life. But Rhydon was consistently OU or BL in the first three Generations of Pokemon. It had base 105 HP, base 130(!) Attack and base 120 Defense. It had a pretty good ability in Rock Head and learned a bunch of good moves like Rock Slide, Earthquake, Double-Edge, Substitute, etc. And, for god knows whatever reason, GameFreak decided that RHYDON, of all Pokemon, wasn't good enough and required a new evolution. That would be eyeroll-worthy enough, but Rhyperior is really just stupid looking. To quote another member, "Rhyperior looks like Rhydon covered in Groudon's jizz." Such a waste of a Pokemon, especially when there we/are so many existing rejects like Farfetch'd, Delcatty or Chimecho who would have loved to have an evolution.

472. Floatzel (National Dex: 419; Generation: IV)When I was first saw Buizel, I actually really liked him. When I was reading comments about the new Pokemon on Smogon's forum, I saw a couple of people saying that Buizel's evolution was really cute too, so I was excited. Then I saw this said evolution and I was very scared. Floatzel, maybe more than any other Pokemon, looks like it probably has rabies. The sprite doesn't help, either, since Floatzel has this facial expression that makes him look like a prick. So, in other words, it's not cute. It's also actually pretty annoying in Diamond and Pearl. More than any other wild Pokemon, Floatzel loves to ambush me in wild battles and rape the faces of the underleveled Pokemon that I'm trying to train. It's fast and I can't escape, and it has good Attack and Speed so almost always goes first and kills my Pokemon. Maybe I need to stop being a baby but THAT IS REALLY DAMN ANNOYING. As such, I have a low opinion of Fatsel despite his cool pre-evolution.

471. Mothim (National Dex: 414; Generation: IV)Okay, so... I probably seem very critical of the two later Generations of Pokemon at this point. I actually have nothing against the idea of new Pokemon themselves, but when they fit into categories such as "crappy pre-evolution" or "rabid and unnecessary evolution," I get a little annoyed. Mothim fits into the "been there, done that, did it better the first (or second or third) time" category. More specifically, we've had TONS of moth Pokemon over the years and, unlike cats, moths are just not interesting. There are so many other insects that could be made into Pokemon (such as roaches, mosquitoes, worms, etc.), but instead we were blessed with a family of bagworm/moth rehashes in DP. Mothim is the fourth moth-based Pokemon after Venomoth, Dustox and Masquerain, and it's the most visually boring one of them all. It's a brown and orange piece of crap with wings, big freaking deal, and it's completely worthless in battle. They should have just left this one on the cutting room floor, since it doesn't even really fit with Burmy and Wormadam either.

470. Glameow (National Dex: 431; Generation: IV)Glameow, much like its own evolution and Mothim, is one of those Pokemon that makes you think "Why did they do this idea again?" I mean, we had Meowth, Persian, Mewtwo and Mew in Kanto; Espeon in Johto; and Skitty and Delcatty in Hoenn. Is there some sort of unwritten rule that requires every region to have its own set of cat Pokemon? And, as I said in Purugly's write-up, cats are awesome, so I wouldn't even mind Glameow being the umpteenth cat-based Pokemon if it didn't look so stupid. First of it, Glameow has that really smug look 100% of the time. I'd actually love to punch the damn thing in its ugly face because it seems to be judging me. It isn't even that cute because its tail is spring-like for absolutely no reason (which also made it a bitch for people to design a forum icon for Glameow, and I don't think we ever got a decent icon for this crappy Pokemon as a result) and it looks like a crackhead. Make the Generation V cat Pokemon cuter than these pieces of sh*t if you insist on having them, GameFreak. Thanks.

469. Zigzagoon (National Dex: 263; Generation: III)Yes, it's true that Zigzagoon is frustratingly common in Ruby and Sapphire, but I'd be a huge hypocrite to bash Zigzagoon for that when I always defend Bidoof against forum members who hate it for being so common. So I don't hate Zigzagoon because it shows up so often in the tall grass Hoenn, although I DO wonder why GameFreak gave it to so many of the Trainers in Ruby/Sapphire too. To put it simply... I don't like Zigzagoon because it's an eyesore. It's supposed to be a raccoon but GameFreak, for some reason, wanted to implement a "zigzag" and "straight line" design on this family and the end result was Zigzagoon looking like an raccoon that had swallowed a stick of dynamite and exploded. Even its mouth has that f*cked-up zigzag shape and it makes the Pokemon, which might be otherwise cute, resemble a creepy little gremlin. I must admit that Pick Up is a damn useful ability, though, even though Linoone can accomplish the same thing without being a billboard for spontaneous combustion.

468. Kricketune (National Dex: 402; Generation: IV)Kricketune is another incredibly common Pokemon. Unlike a lot of people, I don't hate Pokemon just because they have a high encounter rate, but I'd be lying if I said I don't become kind of numb to the Pokemon after seeing it so much. I mean, I don't hate them, but it becomes hard to like the Pokemon just because they appear SO much throughout the course of the game that they start to seem less like Pokemon and more like generic roadblocks. Take Kricketune, for example. After you first hear its cry, you might think, "Oh, that's pretty cool," but hearing it every other wild battle makes it get very old, very fast. Kricketune's visual design isn't too hot either. The arms, which are supposed to make it look like a musical conductor waving his sticks, just look awkward, and the mustache looks pretty goofy as well. While I do honestly like the idea of having a sound-based cricket Pokemon, the implementation simply didn't turn out very well, and Kricketune is pretty useless in battle on top of that.

467. Kricketot (National Dex: 401; Generation: IV)A lot of my Kricketune criticisms also apply to its pre-evolution, Kricketot. The visual design isn't that great; when I first saw Kricketot, for example, I was convinced that it was a baby Pokemon that would serve as a bridge between Volbeat and Illumise. How do you manage to make a cricket Pokemon look like a pre-evolution for two firefly Pokemon? Also, why is Bide the only move that this thing can learn? There is no canon reason for this other than to annoy the player, much like Beldum and Take Down, but Bide is a much harder move to work with and Kricketune, compared to Metagross, is much less worthy of the effort of training up a Pokemon that only knows a single, bad move. Also, it looks sort of like a harp. What the hell?

466. Metagross (National Dex: 376; Generation: III)Here's the problem I have with Metagross... Hoenn already had a Psuedo-Legendary in Salamence. You could argue that Metagross was originally intended to be Hoenn's Psuedo-Legendary and then Salamence was created, but Metagross is so different from the other four Pseudo Legendaries that I'm convinced that things went the other way around, as Metagross doesn't have a 4x weakness and it's not Dragon-type or even remotely draconic. Metagross also has an appropriate name because it looks so stupid. It's supposed to be two Metang melded together, and a Metang is supposed to be two Beldum melded together. How exactly do you get a gigantic robotic spider-monster out of four pieces of the little scrap metal that was Beldum? It just doesn't work. Metagross also has a lot of stupid fans, adding to the reasons why I don't really care for it.

465. Salamence (National Dex: 373; Generation: III)I lurk around VoteForTheWorst.com, and the members there have a expression called "fantarding." It's basically the word to be used when irrational fans of a singer on American Idol go apesh*t over everything their favorite contestant does. The noun version of "fantarding" is "fantard," and, good God, does Salamence have a ton of those. Probably more than any other Hoenn Pokemon, Salamence has hordes and hordes of fans, usually (though not exclusively) irrational ones with poor English skills, who flip out over their favorite Dragon-type. Granted, it's a cooler design than Metagross, which is why Salamence beats Metagross in my rankings, but my issue with Salamence is that ancient Pokemon named DRAGONITE. Salamence is basically the Hoenn rehash of this Pokemon, and I've already documented my distaste for shameless rehashes. But Salamence is such a pathetic recreation of Dragonite that, I swear to God, GameFreak must have been doing test groups on little kids who said that Dragonite wasn't "cool" enough or was too "cute" or whatever and, on the seventh day, Salamence was born to serve as the "OMG COOL" version of Dragonite. It's blue, it looks mean, it comes with Intimidate, it's Attack-oriented and, honestly, it smacks of desperation because its whole reason for existing is to be a ferocious Dragon meant to attract little kids to the fanbase. F*ck off.

464. Groudon (National Dex: 383; Generation: III)So I have two main problems with Groudon, and I'll address the shorter one first. It's a generic "cool" design, and I know what Groudon's counterparts, Rayquaza and Kyogre, are supposed to be... but what exactly is Groudon? Its species classification says that it's the "Continent Pokemon," so does that mean that it's a giant walking landmass or what? Also, the bigger problem is Groudon and Team Magma's nonsensical role in the storyline of Pokemon Ruby. I suppose I could believe Kyogre causing a massive flood through its control over the seas (and even why Team Aqua would want more water on the planet), but what the hell does Groudon do? Does it summon intense beams of sunlight to cause a massive drought or something? And, in that case, why is it a Ground-type Pokemon instead of a Fire-type, especially when its pseudo-trademark move is ERUPTION?? And Team Magma are bunch of dumbf*cks, too, because they wanted to use Groudon to eliminate all of the water from the planet! Have these dumbasses never taken a biology class before? Humanity dies without water, so great job, rocket scientists! I also hate when there's a rivalry between two Pokemon and one Pokemon has a massive type advantage against the other, as is the case in Groudon vs. Kyogre. Such a badly handled idea for a Pokemon.

463. Prinplup (National Dex: 394; Generation: IV)This ranking might seem a little surprising if you know how much I like Piplup, Empoleon and penguins in general. But the thing is... Prinplup doesn't really look like a penguin. Look at its face; it resembles a pissed off owl more than a penguin. Also, Prinplup is just another typical middle evolution: it's not even close to being as cute as Piplup and it doesn't look as cool as Empoleon. Instead, it's simply an angry reject and I blame that little yellow ridge on Prinplup's forehead. It makes Prinplup have that always-pissed off look, kind of like Nicole Kidman's eyebrows.

462. Loudred (National Dex: 294; Generation: III)My good friend TonberryKing pretty much summed this one up for me, once upon time: "I liked Whismur until it evolved. I disowned the entire family after that." Loudred is a bad design, what with its Mickey Mouse radio speaker ears, that gigantic Exploud mouth and its rabid/crazy appearance in general. Also, middle evolution syndrome strikes again, even though I think that the middle evolution looks better than the final evolution in this case. Still, why couldn't have Whismur evolved into something cuter than this mess?

461. Trapinch (National Dex: 328; Generation: III)A boring Pokemon with an ugly jagged/razor-toothed mouth and a nonsensical evolution chain. Why does an antlion evolve into two dragonflies? And why the hell are NONE of these Pokemon Bug-types? It's so stupid. I still remember how I thought Trapinch was an one-stage evolution line when I first saw RS's new Pokemon; imagine my surprise when I learned that it evolved into those two cool Dragon Pokemon who have nothing in common with this thing! Seriously? It's also incredibly hard to raise due to its horrible speed and Defensive stats. And why does it have Arena Trap? So random and pointless.

Rating: 4/10 ("I mildly dislike these Pokemon.")460. Baltoy (National Dex: 343; Generation: III)The only notable thing about Baltoy is that it's based on the dogu, which is a small, historic Japanese figurine. Now, I like when Pokemon have a clear basis in aspects of foreign cultures... but the dogu isn't interesting. A dogu served as the basis of the Yellow Ranger's Zord in Power Rangers: Zeo, and that's just about the ONLY reason I can find to care about the thing. Baltoy is about as interesting as its source of inspiration. It barely has a face and it's a very simple and boring design. It looks like a cheap toy that I should be spinning during Hanukkah. Also, why the hell is it Psychic/Ground? And why did it have time-altering powers in the anime? And why can't I bring myself to care?

459. Claydol (National Dex: 344; Generation: III)I could pretty much paste Baltoy's write-up here, changing the word "Baltoy" to "Claydol," and I'd have an accurate representation of my opinions of Claydol. So you might be wondering why I ranked Claydol above its predecessor? Well, it does have a more complex appearance than Baltoy, even though it's a literally bizarre design that looks kind of stupid. But the main reason why Claydol makes it this high and earns a 4/10 is this Pokemon card. It's actually cute! How awesome is it for a Pokemon with that many eyes to make a happy face? It's not just ^_^, it's ^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^! Unfortunately, Claydol usually looks more like O_O_O_O_O_O_O_O, so it's the creepier facial expression that is the norm and it's also why I can't justify Claydol going any higher than this.

458. Grotle (National Dex: 388; Generation: IV)So here we have yet another posterchild for Middle Evolution Syndrome. Grotle isn't as cute as Turtwig, nor is it as cool as Torterra, and aspects of its design just sort of irk me. The little shrubs on its back look pretty stupid; its shell looks too soft, which makes it look more like an armadillo than a turtle; and there's something wrong with Grotle's face that I just can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's that glaring eye, or maybe it's just an awkwardly drawn positioning of its head, but still. If I think that there's something wrong with your FACE, things are pretty much hopeless, aren't they? Still, it's not that bad. It doesn't instill enough dislike for me to give it less than 4/10, after all.

457. Whismur (National Dex: 293; Generation: III)Refer to the quote listed in Loudred's write-up. Whismur was cute and likable until I saw its evolutions and then it just seemed a whole lot less appealing. Still, Whismur made it this high in the rankings and garners a 4/10 because it still is a bit cute and doesn't really offend me. I liked that the recurring Jigglypuff, in its last ever appearance in the anime, got to sing its song to a Whismur who, due to its Soundproof ability, could stay awake for Jigglypuff's entire song. That was a nice little piece of closure to Jigglypuff's story and we have Whismur to thank for it. Still, its evolutions suck and Whismur's face is permanently stuck in +_+ mode, so it's not that great.

456. Regice (National Dex: 378; Generation: III)The Legendary Golems are probably the most polarizing of the Legendary Trios. The Legendary Birds and Beasts seemed to get a warm reception when their games were released, but the Regis got just as many "These Pokemon are so cool!" reactions as "These Pokemon are so pathetic!" ones. I'm fairly neutral toward the Regis, however, because I think they're pretty boring. Regice, for example, is literally a giant slab of ice. That just isn't exciting. It also looks kind of like a giant fork, and the last thing I needed was a Pokemon who resembled a overgrown kitchen utensil. All three Golems have the problem of being literally faceless, which makes it hard for me to really like OR dislike them. Regice is the target of most of my frustration with the Legendary Golems, primarily because it's a Pokemon of a type that is so much more awesome than a giant ice cube, whereas Regice's counterparts blend right in with their own boring types. Also, it's a Defensive Ice Pokemon, which is inherently an oxymoron. So frustrating.

In the next update: Johto takes a few hits, the first fully-evolved Starter Pokemon appears, and two more new Sinnoh evolutions get chucked.

First of all, how am I failing to understand the target demographic? I know exactly what kind of "look" little kids go for. I know what Pokemon are popular with little kids. I was once part of the target demographic myself, too. It's pretty obvious to see when a Pokemon is meant to make little boys go "OMG THIS POKEMON IS COOL!": Dragon-, Fire-, Dark-type and Legendary Pokemon especially, as these are the kinds of Pokemon who have a LOT of fans around the Internet and they're also the ones who did well in PsyPoke Idol. They annoy me because "cool" has never been my thing over "cute." Are you saying that I'm mistaken and most little boys play Pokemon because they like CUTE things? No, most of them like ferocious Dragons and crap that looks "evil." That's the norm, not "I like Cherrim because it's adorable! Skitty is so cute and it makes me smile!"

Second of all, the rose-tinted glasses statement really kind of offends me. I've provided thorough commentary on why I've ranked each Pokemon as low as I have so far and not once has it ever come down to "I hate this Pokemon because it's a new Pokemon bawww!" It's usually something like "I hate this Pokemon because we had already had a lot of Pokemon based on this animal" or "I hate this Pokemon because middle evolutions are awkward" and not "I hate this Pokemon because it's from Diamond and Pearl." I judge Pokemon on a case-by-case basis, and people (some of whom are members of this very forum) who say things like "OMG I HATE ALL OF THE NEW POKEMON DP THEY'RE SO STUPID AND UGLY" piss me off. The sudden massive wave of love for everything Johto-based that didn't exist until HGSS got announced is irritating as well. I think that the Pokemon designs have become more stylized since RSE myself, which makes the overall batches of new Pokemon more polarizing, but for people to flip out over how Nintendo is "running out of ideas" and for fans to be so close-minded that they can't find ANYTHING that they like out of 100+ new Pokemon? That's not realistic, and I find that annoying.

I'm also not a fan of people getting criticized for being "nostalgic" anyway. If you take two equally boring Pokemon like Cascoon and Kakuna, which one am I going to like more? Probably the one who I knew for five years more. The longer something exists, the more time that a person has to build opinions and memories with the thing in question. Is that really having rose-colored glasses on? It's not that much different than saying "Well, Tangrowth looks kind of odd on first glance. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet," and then gradually forming a positive opinion of it over time, which is exactly what I did with Tangrowth. Yeah, overall, I prefer Kanto and Johto over Hoenn and Sinnoh, and I explained earlier that it's because Hoenn and Sinnoh's Pokemon are more stylized, but I don't think every Kanto/Johto Pokemon is great nor do I think every Hoenn/Sinnoh Pokemon is awful.

re your first paragraph, what I meant was that you act surprised and indignant towards Nintendo for targeting excitable ten-year-olds, as if you expected the games to be fluffy and cute.

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The sudden massive wave of love for everything Johto-based that didn't exist until HGSS got announced is irritating as well.

far as I can tell, the preference for Johto has been around for a while; well before the announcement of HGSS, probably even before DPP. I recall that even before Munchlax was announced, people already proclaimed GSC as the "best generation".

re your third paragraph, fair's fair. I only properly got into the fandom half-way through the series, so my bias is skewed towards RSE (seriously, I seem to be the only person around who has relatively few gripes about Hoenn).

re your first paragraph, what I meant was that you act surprised and indignant towards Nintendo for targeting excitable ten-year-olds, as if you expected the games to be fluffy and cute.

I don't blame Nintendo for doing that; I'm really just trying to get across that I don't care for Pokemon like that usually. There's also "cool" and "Nintendo is really trying to make sure the fanbase thinks this is cool!", which is a little desperate, though not surprising. The only one that really surprises me is Salamence because... yeah... it was basically made to be Dragonite, only "cooler."

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far as I can tell, the preference for Johto has been around for a while; well before the announcement of HGSS, probably even before DPP. I recall that even before Munchlax was announced, people already proclaimed GSC as the "best generation".

Speaking strictly about the Johto Pokemon, it seems like only now that HGSS has been revealed that people give a damn. Before HGSS, the only Johto Pokemon that seemed reasonably popular were the starters (even then, people seem to be so much less vocal about liking the Johto starters than the other sets), Heracross, Ampharos, Tyranitar and the 5/6 legendaries. If you read threads about "Most Forgettable Pokemon," even the one on our forum right now or the one on Bulbapedia, Johto Pokemon make up the majority of the replies. Competitive battlers don't care too much about the Johto Pokemon because a lot of them aren't that strong. The anime had distanced itself from Johto's Pokemon because the Johto episodes were such a flop. Of course, many people did think GSC were great games and that the generation had a lot to offer, as do I, but the Johto love has been on overkill since HGSS were announced.

Mkay, I'm kind of straying now. Next update should be later tonight or tomorrow, depending on my progress regarding school work.

Johto has the second highest number of Pokemon in the OU/BL tier, beating Kanto by 1 and Hoenn by 4. Additionally, Johto has (easily) the second highest percentage of OU/BL pokemon out of the whole generation. It loses out to Sinnoh in both categories, but that isn't too surprising since it is the most recent generation and is thus most in-tune with the current standards. Also, according to Smogon's most recent usage statistics, Scizor, the number 1 pokemon used in the OU tier, has a usage percentage of 31.81%. The number 2 pokemon, Gyarados, has a usage of 20.28% - a difference of over 10%. Now tell me competitive battlers ignore Johto.

Simple: you listed ten out of a hundred Johto Pokemon. Pokemon like those are the exception from the Johto-based pool, and some of those Pokemon weren't even OU until Platinum, much less Diamond and Pearl or Ruby and Sapphire. Go back to the third generation and Scizor and Kingdra were stuck in BL limbo because they had good stats but no movepool. I acknowledged that Celebi, Tyranitar, Suicune and Heracross were good battlers in my last post and, granted, I did somehow forget to mention Skarmbliss's worth in competitive battling. (As a sidenote, I feel that their -- and Wobbuffet's -- infamy on sites like Smogon has always inflated their "popularity," because competitive battling really is a smaller subset of the Pokemon community.)

For each of those ten Pokemon that are OU in the current metagame, there are completely worthless Johto Pokemon like Ledian, Ariados, Corsola, Delibird, Magcargo, Noctowl, Furret, Unown, etc., and there also used to be a collection of Johto Pokemon who saw zero use until they received new evolutions in DP (namely: Aipom, Togetic, Piloswine, Murkrow, Sneasel, et al). Few people use Dunsparce, Girafarig, Octillery, Xatu, Granbull or Qwilfish. Even the more "good" Pokemon from Johto, like Misdreavus, Ursaring, Ampharos, Entei, Crobat and Jumpluff have rotted away in UU after the release of RS.

Speaking of which, I also made my statement about competitive battlers looking unfavorably at Johto Pokemon because that was the consensus after RS had come out and a lot of the Johto Pokemon still sucked as badly as they did in GSC (see Pokemon previously listed) or even got outclassed by newer Hoenn Pokemon such as Jumpluff vs. Sceptile. The Johto starters, even, have always been viewed as mediocre in battle and the starters are supposed to be some of the better Pokemon of a generation. Maybe Johto has a better competitive reputation now that the fourth generation exists and its heavy reliance on the second generation meant gifts for the forgotten Johto kids, but that definitely wasn't always the case.

Okay, 4rlz, as much as I like some serious discussion about Pokemon, my next post will have the next update I SWEAR. :(

455. Unown ........................(National Dex: 201; Generation: II)Because Ditto soon became a valuable Pokemon in its own right due to breeding, Unown is chronologically the first useless gimmick Pokemon of the franchise. Unown literally has no worth in battle, as it has subpar defenses, mediocre offenses and its only move is available as a universal TM. You really have to wonder what GameFreak was thinking in making a set of Pokemon based on the English alphabet because, in addition to many of the Unowns not even resembling the letters that they represent, it meant that this Pokemon would suck in 26 different ways. And then Ruby and Sapphire added two more Unown, either just to laugh at us or to teach players the value of punctuation (and, judging by some of the posts on PsyPoke, that didn't work). But I only really started to dislike Unown because I got back into the TCG in 2009 and... you guessed it... every Unown form had its own cards, which meant that I would be getting way more Unown cards than I should have in booster packs. One particularly hideous Unown/TCG memory was when I bought a Secret Wonders booster pack that had an Unown I card as my rare and the same Unown I card as my reverse holo. After declaring that I hated Unown on the spot, Unown's ranking plummeted that day.

454. Carvanha (National Dex: 318; Generation: III)It still looks angry and rabid, it's still a Dark-type and it's even less useful in battle than Sharpedo, but I like Carvanha's design a lot more because it actually looks more like a proper piranha whereas Sharpedo was a floating shark's head. And, in the TCG, Carvanha is just about the only documented instance of Tomokazu Komiya not sucking ass at his job, so there's that too. Although, a piranha evolving into a shark doesn't make much sense, and those lightning bolt-esque fins really make Carvanha look like it should be part Electric-type, don't they? Still, it's much more tolerable than its evolution.

453. Shellos (West) (National Dex: 422; Generation: IV*)Shellos is another one of those Pokemon who has alternate forms for no particular reason. I suppose having a Pokemon with different designs based on its geographic area is a decent idea, but I think it would worked better for the designs to differ between entire regions than to differ between the eastern and western halves of one region. Anyway, even though you start on the western half of Sinnoh, I prefer the eastern version of Shellos. Shellos-W is an ugly shade of pastel pink, it's boring to look at, and it resembles a clown in its Platinum sprite. It was also pretty annoying back when DP came out and idiots made a dozen topics asking if their Shellos was shiny because it was blue instead of pink. I'm mostly neutral toward this thing, though.

(* Fun Fact - Shellos and Gastrodon were originally designed for Ruby and Sapphire but got held over until Diamond and Pearl. If they had the pink Shellos in Hoenn and the blue Shellos in Sinnoh, I would have liked the idea of geography-based appearances more.)

452. Dunsparce (National Dex: 206; Generation: II)When Gold and Silver were first released, Dunsparce was probably my least favorite Pokemon ever, so it's actually pretty good that he made it all the way up to #452 and garnered a 4/10 rating, I guess. Dunsparce is supposed to be a mythical landsnake, which is why it has the Serene Grace ability and can learn moves like Glare, but the problem I have is that Dunsparce more resembles roadkill. In addition to Dunsparce's vacant crackface, its back looks inexplicably flattened and those tire track-like markings certainly don't help dispel the illusion. I also approve of Rhapsody's analogy of Dunsparce being a flying slipper. Still, the unintentionally comedy of Dunsparce being roadkill has kind of helped the Pokemon grow on me over the years, and Serene Grace also made Dunsparce far less useless in battle than it was in Generation II, so I don't really hate it anymore.

451. Pupitar (National Dex: 247; Generation: II)Pupitar is another that design that I have neutral feelings about because it's pretty boring. So why did it garner a 4/10 instead of a 5/10? Because, once again, we have a Pokemon who is a glorified cocoon and it garners way more respect than it deserves just because it evolves into Tyranitar. In other words, it's the prototype to Shelgon, but I certainly don't hate Pupitar more than its successor or a couple of the other cocoons. That's probably because Pupitar's markings make it look like it has an actual face instead of a pair of vacant eyes that are staring into my soul, which was the case for Shelgon and Silcascoon.

450. Blaziken (National Dex: 257; Generation: III)Blaziken is the first Starter Pokemon to show up on my rankings because, unfortunately, Blaziken has always seemed like the sore thumb of the Starter Pokemon to me. Blaziken is one of a select group of about four or five Hoenn Pokemon (including Flygon and Gardevoir) that instantly attracted swarms of idiot fans after the release of Ruby and Sapphire. Unlike the others, though, I really don't like Blaziken's design that much. When the Pokemon was first revealed, it did get some criticism for looking too much like a Digimon; I can kind of see where that thought comes from, as Blaziken does look pretty different from the Kanto and Johto Pokemon and foreshadowed that Hoenn was going to have those more stylized designs that I mentioned yesterday. Blaziken also looks more like a rubber chicken that I should be throwing at the opponent rather than using it to battle the opponent. Still, Blaziken is pretty fun to use in battle and it only gets mild dislike from me due to the combination of the dumb fans and the awkward design.

449. Rayquaza (National Dex: 384; Generation: III)Another Pokemon whose crazy fanatics lower my opinion of the Pokemon itself. Yeah, I'm really just repeating myself at this point, but I don't know what's so inherently cool about Dragons that look like they want to kill me. Other than that, Rayquaza's design is alright for the most part, but something about its appearance does kind of irk me. I think it's because of those red ridges along its body; they make Rayquaza look like he was made out of Legos or K'NEX something. Also, while studying Rayquaza's sprite to address why its design bothers me, I just noticed his little chicken-leg arms for the first time and I think it's kind of funny that such a powerful Pokemon has such wimpy, underdeveloped limbs. I also don't particularly understand why Rayquaza and Deoxys have been randomly portrayed as rivals in both the awful seventh movie and in the TCG. Can't they just go ahead and kill each other? I really don't care about their rivalry.

448. Gallade (National Dex: 475; Generation: IV)For Gallade's write-up, let's consult the very same test group that declared Dragonite too "cute" and led to the creation of Salamence:

Faceless Executive: "Hey kids, isn't that Gardevoir a great Pokemon?!"Generic Male Brat #1: "No, she's a GIRL! Girls have cooties!"Generic Male Brat #2: "My sister's Gardevoir is a BOY! But it has a dress and long hair! My sister says it's a "trap." I'm confused!"Generic Male Brat #3: "Girls are wussy! I like swords and knights!"Faceless Executive: [writing on a clipboard] "Note to self: little boys don't like girls. Also, male Gardevoirs are promoting an alternate lifestyle and we don't want the right wing to boycott our product, after all! Contact Ken, make him design a male version of Gardevoir. Swords instead of arms should be mandatory, not optional."

And the very next day, Gallade was born to serve a life of being idolized by little boys who thought that Gardevoir had too many cooties to train.

"omg guyz milotic is so beautiful don't u think? i like to touch myself at night thinking about milotic and how beautiful she iz LOL! wat do you mean krips and frsot that milotic isn't beuaitful? the pokedex even says she'z teh most beautiful pokemon of them all! frost r u tryin 2 say that teh only problem u hav with milotic iz that she's a hoenn version of gyarados? umm wat iz gyardos i wasn't old enough 2 start playin pokemon until rubysaph were released LOL! anyway milotic iz much more beautiful than jynx, jynx is so ugly and racist, i'm white but i don't want to offend my black friends for liking jynx, so i like milotic because her skin is creamy smooth and white hehehehe!!"

Thanks for inspiring my mild dislike for Milotic, r-cubed! <3

446. Tyrogue (National Dex: 236; Generation: II)I have three problems with Tyrogue. The first is that it's a Baby Pokemon but it's also a Fighting-type who wants to look tough, so it doesn't even have the "It's cute!" reason to exist unlike the other Baby Pokemon. The second problem is that Tyrogue has all base 35 stats and, until DPP, could only learn Tackle by level-up, which meant that it was a bitch and a half to train. Finally, I don't like how Tyrogue looks like a Hitmonchan pre-evolution instead of a Pokemon who could realistically evolve into Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan OR Hitmontop. I would have given this thing Hitmonlee's stretchy legs, Hitmontop's dreads and Hitmonchan's face or boxing gloves. What was Ken Sugimori thinking when he took Hitmonchan's head and plopped it onto a generic Fighting-type Baby Pokemon? He totally botched up showcasing how Tyrogue connected the three Hitmons.

Rating: 5/10 ("I am pretty neutral toward these Pokemon.")445. Lunatone (National Dex: 337; Generation: III)Tyrogue was the last Pokemon I disliked, so now you have 445 write-ups of neutrality and positivity to endure. Lunatone pulls off its theme much better than its counterpart Solrock, as a Psychic/Rock moon-themed Pokemon works much better for me than a Psychic/Rock sun-based one. Lunatone is also more useful in battle due to a better stat distribution. Still, Lunatone's look is a little too... basic. You get Luvdisc-esque "It took us thirty seconds to throw together this design!" vibes from Lunatone as the designers proceeded to whip up the most generic moon-based Pokemon possible. It's just okay.

444. Scizor (National Dex: 212; Generation: II)Scizor always seemed kind of unnecessary. Scyther was one of the only Kanto Bug Pokemon who actually had some potential to improve outside of RBY, so GameFreak addressed this by... evolving it in the very next games? What? However, what I do like about Scizor is that's not a traditional evolution. Scyther and Scizor have the same overall stat total with widely different distributions; if only Scizor's typing weren't so much better than Scyther's, there might have been more of a question of whether or not to evolve. Still, I have a lukewarm opinion of Scizor and that's probably because (incoming spoiler!) I've always had a pretty tepid opinion of Scyther as well. Taking a Pokemon that I personally think is pretty meh and sticking it in a shiny coat of red paint isn't going to make me suddenly think that it's awesome, although that trick certainly did work on a lot of little kids.

443. Combusken (National Dex: 256; Generation: III)The pre-cursor to Blaziken. It still looks a little like a rubber chicken Digimon that I should be throwing at somebody, but it's better than its evolution so I'm pretty neutral toward it. Another thing I forgot to mention in my Blaziken write-up is that I don't like how adorable little Torchic evolves into... these things. Way to let the cuteness go to waste, designers!

442. Magmortar (National Dex: 467; Generation: IV)Sure, Magmortar's face does look a little too clown-like, but I can't think of anything else to complain about. Unlike Electabuzz, Magmar did kind of need an evolution because Fire is such a godawful type in competitive battling, so I can't even knock Magmortar for being an unnecessary evolution like I did for its counterpart Electivire. The arm cannons are kind of neat. The design isn't awful. It seems usable in battle. If you can't tell, Magmortar is a pretty "meh" Pokemon to me, although it is rather annoying that Magmortar was more needed than Electivire but they gave an exclusive ability to Electivire and stuck Magmortar with Flame Body. Even Magmortar deserved better than that.

441. Metang (National Dex: 375; Generation: III)And here we have Metang, an anomaly of Middle Evolution Syndrome because it's ranked higher than both Beldum and Metagross. I have no real qualms with Metang. It's not a random piece of scrap metal who haunts my nightmares from swarming on Route 228 and it doesn't look like a giant metallic demon crawler. In fact, it doesn't even look angry in its sprite. It's an unoffensive non-entity.

In the next update: Bug-type slaughter, a Johto legendary and TWO Kanto Pokemon?! :O

Are you saying that I'm mistaken and most little boys play Pokemon because they like CUTE things? No, most of them like ferocious Dragons and crap that looks "evil." That's the norm, not "I like Cherrim because it's adorable! Skitty is so cute and it makes me smile!"

I played pokemon 'cause cherrim was adorable and skitty made me smile ):

I loved your description for zigzagoon, and a couple of others made me laugh. agree with pretty much all of it too, except i think mothim is a adorable and deserves to be above five and i strongly dislike how the most annoying pokemon of all time and the ugliest pokemon of all time (zubat and tentacool respectively) haven't had mention yet. i suppose that my dislike for zubat does devrive somewhat from the concept that it attacks passers by and drinks their blood which did not appeal to nine year old me whatsoever.

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